Update: Wantagh native brings home silver medal at Tokyo Olympics

Posted
Andrew Capobianco and diving partner Michael Hixon with their silver medals last Wednesday.
Andrew Capobianco and diving partner Michael Hixon with their silver medals last Wednesday.
Courtesy Darlene Capobianco

Update Aug 3: Capobianco placed tenth in the individual 3-meter springboard diving event. 

The original story is below.

At the mere age of 21, Wantagh native Andrew Capobianco is an Olympic medalist.

Capobianco, with diving partner Michael Hixon, earned Team U.S.A. a silver medal on Wednesday after scoring 444 points in the men’s Synchronized 3m Springboard Final at the Tokyo Olympics.

Diving pair Wang Zongyuan and Tie Siyi, of China, won the gold medal after scoring 467 points, according to the official Olympic medal standings.

“I’m extremely proud,” Andrew’s mother, Darlene Capobianco, said. “He has exceeded all of our expectations. We knew that he had the talent and the will and the drive, but once you get on the stage, everything changes. He was surrounded by other divers who have already won medals and won the Olympics.

“I will say this,” Darlene added. “Andrew did say he felt that he was at his strongest, mentally, physically and emotionally, right now.”

First-time Olympian Capobianco got his start diving around age 9 and won his first Nassau County diving championship as a seventh-grader. He left Wantagh with his family around age 13 to pursue his dream of being an Olympian. 

“It’s a dream that you can’t really dream,” his father, Michael Capobianco, said of his silver medal performance. “It’s a dream just for your child to make it to the Olympics, let alone win a medal once they get there.”

Darlene said that Andrew loves good competition. “He told me it has been the best time of his life,” she said. “It’s an amazing experience. He’s meeting so many other athletes from all disciplines.”

And it’s not all about the medals, Michael said. He and his wife mostly want their son to be happy. “We said … to him, if somehow you find your way home with a medal, or a few, or whatever, that’s great,” Michael said. “But the piece of metal doesn’t mean as much as the journey.”

Capobianco previously told the Herald he was grateful that his family was present at the trials when he secured a spot at the Olympics.

“I know they’ve put so much into this dream of mine,” Capobianco said in an interview last month. “…We were able to look back at all the great times that we’ve had leading up to this point, and all the people that have helped me get here.”

Capobianco first paired with Indiana University graduate Hixon in 2018, two years after Hixon scored a silver diving medal with Sam Dorman in Rio de Janeiro.

“The past 24 hours has been surreal and it still hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Capobianco said in an Instagram post on Thursday. “The whole journey up to this point has been incredible and I’m so proud that we could cap it off with a silver medal.”

The Wantagh native will compete once more in the individual 3-meter springboard diving event. The preliminaries are set to air on Sunday at 2 a.m. Eastern time.